Fresh Beans

There are those who believe that Baltimore's Waverly neighborhood is the next for a social renaissance with the adjacent rejuventaion of Charles Village, but I don't know.

Either way, Waverly is host to the city's only year-round farmer's market and I finally made it down for my first visit. Spike needed to shop for Woodberry Kitchen and I just needed to get out of the house. It's a relatively small or pretty decent-sized farmers' market (depending on how big your farmers' market is) but the selection is pretty good. Local favorites, like One Straw Farm, are there and there's quite a bit to choose from. I ended up buying some chile habanero, apple cider and fresh beans (butter, black and lima). I've never experienced fresh beans before and am looking forward to cooking with them. After years of dried or canned, it was kinda odd to see them fresh and ready to use. Just wish I had more time to use them right away but, alas, they will be vacuum packed and frozen until it's time.

Spike, on the other hand, went off. He buys like I prefer to do: in mass quantities and with full abandon. What's that over there? Something fresh and exciting? We'll take a case. Maybe two. Onions are in short supply locally, so we'll take whatever you have. And those shallots too. And you with the $10 frenched lamb racks - we'll take it all. Let's have five crates of apples and why don't we throw in four gallons of cider while we're at it. Fresh beans? Do you have an extra bucket? No? Be back tomorrow. We'll need two cases of red peppers for that special. And is that all the kale you have left? We'll take that too. What? You'll cut us some fresh herbs for tomorrow? Snap! And how about a couple more cases of lettuce...

We filled up the bed of my Sonoma pickup and it's still not enough to satisfy the needs of the restaurant. But it's always cool driving around packed to the gills with product.